JimT,
I am glad you and your body got out of the situation unharmed. I have to tell you, though, that giving that guy $53 and then making a run to the truck was stupid. I work in New Haven and grew up in NY. People can shoot others for the slightest of reasons and sometimes, for no reason at all. You took a big chance with both of your lives. You should have given him all the money and just walked away.
Wow, fourteen hundred dollars!? For two lives? That's a heckufa bargain!
FWIW, I must chime in that what ihifi states is absolutely true. The textbook response (to avoid grave bodily harm re: assertiveness theory) to this type of behavior is to (extremely politely) state, "Cash, you need cash? Please here, take my wallet, all my credit cards and take my watch too {or anything else in my pocket or car you would like to have}."
Recently I documented the story of a twenty-something man who was being robbed of a classic car at a car wash in his own neighborhood and decided to admonish the assailant, "You don't want to do this!" following which he was promptly hit over the head by the assailant's associate and shot in the abdomen and leg for good measure, resulting in the need for surgery including a titanium implant from hip to knee.
Now he walks with a cane like an 80-year-old man (permanent disability, and it completely sucks).
